AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



LITERARY SOCIETIES 



Dickinson College, 



CARLISLE, PENNA. 



Ninety-eighth Commencement, 



HON. SAMUEL J. RANDALL. 



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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2010 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



http://www.archive.org/details/addressdelivered01rand 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



LITERARY SOCIETIES 



Dickinson College, 

CARLISLE, PENNA. 
Ninety -eighth Commencement ^ 



BY THE 



HON. SAMUEL J. RANDALL. 



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Carlisle, Pa., Dec. 29, 188 1. 
HON. SAMUEL J. RANDALL, 

Washington, D. C. 
Dear Sir : 

On behalf of the Belle s-Lettres Society, of Dickinson College, we 
would respectfully ask you to furnish us, for publication, the manuscript 
of your oration on Thomas Jefferson, delivered before the Literary 
Societies of Dickinson College, at the last Annual Commencement. Ap- 
preciating the excellences of your oration, it is the desire of the Society to 
have it put in a form convenient both for preservation and circulation*. 

Vtry respectfully yours, 

R. M. Henderson, 
Duncan M. Graham, 
A. M. Rhoads, 

Committee of General B. Ls. Society. 
A. C. Strite, 
Frank G. Graham, 

Committee of Active Society. 



House of Representatives, 

Washington, Feb'y 4, 1882. 

Messrs. Henderson, Graham, Rhoads, and Messrs. Strite and Gra- 
ham, Members of Committees. 

Gentlemen : 

/ herewith respond to your flattering request. 

With many thanks, 

I am. 

Sincerely yours, 

Sam'l J. Randall. 



ADDRESS 



Hon. Samuel T. Ran 



Virginia has been designated in American history as the mother 
of States and Presidents. I will hereafter incidentally allude to the 
territory which was ceded by the citizens of that State to the Union and 
the extent of the States formed therefrom. My main and immediate 
object to-night, is to speak of one of her illustrious statesmen. I mean 
Thomas Jefferson, who I consider, after Washington, to stand pre- 
eminent in her long list of great men. I shall avoid, as far as possible, 
any partisan or political issues, and confine myself, as far as I can, to 
those acts and writings of his which stand out in bold relief, accepted 
by all classes of men, and which have left indisputed impress for good 
upon our institutions and upon the opinions of the American people. 

It is essential to our future welfare that we should, upon all appro- 
priate occasions, refer to and carefully study the lives and the public 
services of the great men who founded the free government under 
which we have so wonderfully prospered. They vividly recall the 
heroic age of the Republic ; and while the stories of those days have 
been often repeated, yet they do not grow stale or dull, but continue 
fresh and attractive, and time gives them additional interest. There 
are important reasons why we should keep in distinct remembrance the 
facts of our early history. If gratitude did not prompt us to hand down 
to our children, as sacred, the memory of those who sacrificed life and 
property for us, then our future safety as a nation demands that we 



should continue to practice those lessons of wisdom taught by our fore- 
fathers of the Revolution, and which are being gradually incorporated 
into administration in so many parts of the civilized world. Republican 
government, and confidence in the ability of the people to rule them- 
selves, were novel truths in the early days of our colonial history, and 
the great and successful experiment then begun can only be maintained 
by a rigid adherence to those sacred principles which have thus far 
preserved our institutions from decay. Whenever we have adhered in 
our administration to these lessons, peace and prosperity have followed, 
but when we have departed from their teachings, we have had storms 
which have shaken the very foundations of our government. Let us, 
then, in the long future, make them the chart to guide us, and thereby 
escape dangers which experience has shown we should avoid. 

What nobler exemplar could be presented to young men, who, 
having completed their collegiate course, are now to enter upon the 
stormy sea of active life ? It glorifies the best impulses of the human 
heart, and secures the pledge that they, too, in their time, will assert and 
maintain their freedom as did our fathers, even to the sacrifice of their 
lives and their property, to the end that their posterity shall be as free 
as we are. Our forefathers fought, it is true, for their own liberty, and 
for the destruction of every form of tyranny which then enfeebled the 
energies of a young and growing people ; but the battle they won has, 
in the end, proved to be a great victory for the rights of the down- 
trodden and oppressed everywhere. The star which rose in the galaxy 
of nations on the 4th of July, 1776, was the token and the visible sign 
of redemption from old-time despotic government, and the regeneration 
of the people to their inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness. 

Our theme, as I have already said, is Thomas Jefferson. I know 
of none which can be more instructive to the American youth, and yet 
it is one which I have found great difficulty to condense intelligently- 



To portray all the incidents and fruitful exertions of his long career, in 
the brief period allowed me, is impossible. To write his life, is to write 
the history of the first fifty years of our political existence. His prin- 
ciples and teachings are the vitalizing forces of our institutions. If he 
was not right, then have we all been wrong ; but that he was right, our 
success fully proclaims. He fully comprehended and enunciated the 
principles upon which free government could survive, and he never 
ceased to raise his voice against insidious enemies like extravagance, 
corruption, monopoly and disregard of the rights of the many for the 
growth in power and privilege of the few, which then, as now, threatened 
our prosperity and happiness. 

I shall have to be content with confining myself to a few salient 
points in Jefferson's career. Omitting all questions about which opinions 
may be divided, there will yet stand to his credit enough to place his 
name high among those " that were not born to die." He had a sound 
mind in a. healthy body. We are told he was " six feet, two and a half 
" inches in height, well formed, active and robust; with firm and elastic 
" step, which he preserved to his death ; his temper, naturally strong, 
" under perfect control ; his courage cool and impassive." He was a 
graceful and fearless rider, a tireless sportsman, a lover of nature and all 
her wondrous works, a keen observer of men, an economist of time and 
money and an indefatigable worker, always in dead earnest ; in fact, he 
was a thorough and sincere man. He loved his farm, and in his "Notes 
on Virginia," wrote, " Those who labor in the earth are the chosen 
people of God." 

His father, Peter Jefferson, like Washington, had been a land sur- 
veyor, and was equally famous for energy,- fearlessness, probity and 
scrupulous exactitude in all his affairs. His son Thomas, who was born 
in 1743, at Shadwall, in Albemarle County, was like him in all these 
respects. He was the eldest son, and in youth was an eager student. 
He was sent to an English school at five and began to study Latin, 



Greek and French at nine. His father died in 1757, when he was but 
fourteen, leaving two sons and six daughters. They were all left 
comfortably off, each having an estate. His eldest acquired Shadwall, 
the farm which embraced the ever memorable Monticello. Thus, Jef- 
ferson really had none of the cares which most of our American youth 
who rise to eminence have now to encounter, for he was beyond the 
daily anxiety of a living, and could and did devote all time and energy 
undisturbed to his own thorough education. He had excellent and able 
tutors, not so experienced, perhaps, as you have, but the very best 
that could be found at that period in the Colony of Virginia. He 
entered William and Mary College, at Williamsburg, at seventeen, where 
he remained two years. He entered the law office of Geo. Wythe at 
nineteen. Mr. Wythe was able in his profession and distinguished in 
the annals of his State. Jefferson described him as " my faithful and 
" beloved mentor in youth, and my most affectionate friend through 
" life." 

During youth, Jefferson uniformly sought the companionship of 
his teachers, which is always a great advantage to the student, as it 
should ever be a pleasure to the instructor. He was fond of, and ex- 
celled in practice on the violin. The latter, with horseback riding and 
hunting, were his chief amusements. 

A student at college when the dispute between the mother country 
and the Colonies began, he attended, as far as he could, the sittings of 
the Virginia House of Burgesses, and there listened to and was inspired 
by the eloquence of Patrick Henry, and from that time forward his 
whole soul was enlisted for the independence and rights of the Colo- 
nies. He was admitted to practice law in 1767, and continued actively 
engaged in his profession seven years — in fact, until the Revolution 
closed the courts of justice. 

His first public office was that of Justice of the Peace of his native 
county. At twenty-six, he was chosen to represent that county in the 



House of Burgesses, in which body, while he was not eloquent, he is 
represented to have been industrious, thorough and learned. As a 
member of the House of Burgesses, he took a leading part, and was 
always in advance of public opinion in the discussions of the tyranny of 
the British Government. During this period he prepared a common- 
place book on the subject of parliamentary practice, which he found of 
great use when he became Vice-President and the presiding officer of 
the Senate. This work was so complete and exhaustive that he made 
it, as far as he could, applicable to Congress, and it stands to-day a most 
useful and valuable compendium of parliamentary law and is known as 
"Jefferson's Manual." 

About this time, the British Parliament had condemned, by reso- 
lution, the stand taken by the Legislature of Massachusetts against the 
undue encroachments on the people of the Colonies, made by the home 
government. The Legislature of Virginia took sides promptly with 
Massachusetts, and declared that the right belonged alone to the people 
to determine the amount and manner of levying taxes ; claimed the 
right to petition the King respecting their grievances, and protested 
against transportation of persons from the Colonies for trial in England, 
against whom charges of treason had been made, and set forth that 
these acts were unjust, illegal and unconstitutional. In this particular 
debate, Jefferson took an active part. The Assembly was dissolved by 
Lord Bottetourt, then the British Governor of the Colony of Virginia. 
The crisis was at hand. The leading men took their stand in the cause 
of liberty, from which they never retreated. An association was at 
once formed and eighty-eight members of the lately dissolved Assembly 
signed a compact. The names of Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard 
Henry Lee and Thomas Jefferson were among those recorded. These 
men met, notwithstanding the displeasure of the Governor, at the 
" Raleigh Tavern," in Williamsburg, and there did all things within 
range of their power to promote the future freedom of the Colonies. In 



1772, he married. During this year, the complaints against the British 
Government were lessened because of the repeal of certain obnoxious 
taxes. The lull was of short duration ; fresh encroachments followed, 
and Jefferson and other congenial spirits in Virginia, took advantage of 
the condition of things to keep alive the spirit of resistance. It was at 
this period that there was revived the plan of correspondence between 
the Legislatures of the Colonies, originally, I think, proposed in 1767, 
renewed in 1770, but never actually carried into force and effect until 
this year. The ultimate object of this commission was to secure a meet- 
ing of deputies from all the Colonies in a general Congress. Jefferson 
was the author of resolutions to these ends, introduced, however, by 
Mr. Dabney Carr and adopted unanimously. To Massachusetts belongs 
the merit of having originated this plan ; to Virginia, that " of giving 
the plan practical fulfilment and efficacy." Other difficulties arose. 
The tea controversy, in December, 1773, and the retaliatory measure of 
the British Parliament, in the law known as the Boston Port Bill, which 
took effect June 1, 1774. The Virginia Legislature, being again in ses- 
sion, Jefferson introduced, and there was passed, a resolution recom- 
mending the day on which the law took effect as a day of fasting and 
prayer throughout the Colony. The Assembly further ordered an elec- 
tion of Delegates by the Counties of Virginia, who should have the 
power to elect Representatives of the State to the Continental Congress. 
Jefferson prepared certain instructions, which, in fact, contained many of 
the declarations and principles subsequently contained in the Declaration 
of Independence, and for which expressions Jefferson was immediately 
threatened with prosecution for treason. 

In August, 1774, the first duly organized popular Assembly was 
held in Virginia, and that, too, without the consent of Great Britain. 
Jefferson was chosen a member, but was prevented from attendance, 
He, however, wrote elaborate instructions to Patrick Henry and Peyton 
Randolph. They were not adopted, as they were thought too se- 



vere and extreme, but were ordered to be printed and were largely 
circulated. " In this production, Mr, Jefferson took the ground that 
the relation between the Colonies and Great Britain was the same as 
the relation between that country and Scotland after the accession of 
James, or between England and Hanover after the accession of the 
reigning house of the latter country to the British throne ; that they 
had the same executive chief, but no other necessary political connec- 
tions ; and that the emigration of English subjects to America gave the 
British monarch no more rights over them than the emigration of the 
Danes and Saxons to England gave the Danish and Saxon monarchs 
over Englishmen." In substance, therefore, Mr. Jefferson first " an- 
" nounced in the able document, the great republican doctrine that 
" there should be no taxation without representation — a doctrine after- 
" ward more clearly and ably stated by him in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and thus first formulating the great political doctrine that 
"the right to tax is the final depository of political sovereignty." 

Jefferson was not at first a member of the Continental Congress, 
but was active at home among the people, and was a Representative in 
the State Legislature, and in that body supported the resolution of 
Patrick Henry, that the Colony should immediately be put in a state of 
defense, which was carried, although, at that hour, fiercely opposed. 
He was, during this time, the most bitter and effective foe, in Virginia, 
of British oppression. 

In May, 1775, Jefferson was elected to Congress to fill a vacancy 
occasioned by the resignation of Peyton Randolph, who was called home 
to occupy the position of speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses. 
On June 21st he took his seat, at the age of 32 years. On June 26th, 
five days after he entered the Congress, he was appointed on the com- 
mittee to report on the " cause of taking up arms against England." 
Subsequently he was appointed on the committee to prepare the answer 
to Lord North's propositions. " It was the passage of this report, written. 



IO 



by Mr. Jefferson, then the youngest member of Congress, save one, 
which cut off forever all hope of conciliation and union between the 
Colonies and Great Britain. From that moment a desperate conflict 
was inevitable." 

Mr. Jefferson was re-elected to Congress in June, 1776. On the 
26th of June, Virginia adopted a Constitution and a Declaration of 
Rights, the first institution of a free government, by written compact, 
which existed in the New World. The convention in Virginia which 
adopted its Constitution, had previously done another remarkable act 
by the passage of a resolution which set forth " that the delegates ap- 
pointed to represent Virginia in general Congress, be instructed to pro- 
pose to that respectable body to declare the United Colonies free and 
independent States, absolved from all allegiance to or dependence on the 
crown or Parliament of Great Britain, and that they give the assent of 
this Colony to such declaration, and whatever measures may be thought 
necessary by the Congress for forming foreign alliances and a confed- 
eration of the Colonies, at such time and in such manner as to them 
shall seem best; provided, that the power of forming governments for, 
and the regulation of the.internal concerns of each Colony be left to the 
respective Colonial Legislatures." Jefferson held in this perilous and 
immortal race no secondary place ; he never hesitated. While these 
occurrences were taking place in Virginia, Congress was not idle, and 
on the 28th of May, Jefferson moved for an animated address, to impress 
the minds of the people with the necessity of coming forward to save 
their country, their freedom and their property. 

As soon as the instructions of the Legislature of Virginia were re- 
ceived by her delegates in Congress, Richard Henry Lee, the oldest 
and most eloquent member -from Virginia, to wit, on the 7th day of 
June, rose in Congress, which was then sitting in the State House in 
the City of Philadelphia, and moved that " Congress should declare that 
these United States are, and of right ought to be free and independent 



II 



States ; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown ; 
that all political connection between them and the State of Great 
Britain is, and ought to be, totally absolved ; that measures should be 
immediately taken for procuring the assistance of foreign powers, and 
that a confederation be formed to bind the Colonies more closely to- 
gether." The consideration of this resolution was postponed until next 
day and was thereafter warmly discussed, more particularly as to the 
proper time of passing the same, rather than as to the merit of the 
declarations. It was referred finally to a committee to prepare a docu- 
ment more full and appropriate. About this time, Mr. Lee was called 
home and could not serve on this committee, which consisted of Mr. 
Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston and 
Thomas Jefferson. 

The committee was selected by the body, and Jefferson received 
the highest number of votes, and in consequence was chosen chairman, 
and drew the Declaration of Independence, the most important state 
paper of any age, and, seven years after reporting it to Congress, he had 
the singular fortune to report to the same body the definitive treaty of 
peace by which that independence was formally conceded. He wrote 
that immortal paper, and it stands to-day, in every material point, pre- 
cisely as he prepared it. And if, as Jefferson said of Patrick Henry, 
that he spoke as Homer wrote, with equal truth it may be alleged that 
Jefferson wrote as Demosthenes spoke, for in all the withering invec- 
tives hurled by the Athenian orator against the tyrannies of the Mace- 
donian King, there is nothing surpassing, in clearness and vigor of 
expression, the indictment which Jefferson has filed on the pages of our 
history against King George and his Tory Ministers. And what tongue 
or pen can depict truly the enormous consequences of the Declaration ? 
It not only brought into existence a Republic of freemen, which in one 
century has astounded the world by its growth, and to-day, in every 
element of national prosperity, rivals the proudest nations of the earth, 



12 

but it rang out clear and sharp the knell of dynasties, and woke the 
masses to the assertion of their rights, so long held in abeyance. To 
all it may not have brought in equal degree the fruits which have 
blessed us, but it has been a book of knowledge which has been care- 
fully studied, and its lessons so well learned, that no longer does our 
Republic stand alone, contemned and despised as a visionary and foolish 
project, but elsewhere in America, in Europe, and even in Africa, suc- 
cessful sister republics have been established. The amelioration of the 
condition of oppressed peoples, in all quarters of the globe, is chiefly due 
to the influence of its power. This, alone, if he had done no other ser- 
vice, should make Jefferson the idol of the American people. 

His term of service in the Continental Congress expired in August, 
1776. Before that time arrived, he notified the convention of Virginia 
that he declined a re-election. Nevertheless, he was again chosen, but 
remained firm in his purpose. On the 2d of September, Mr. Harrison 
took the seat thus made vacant. 

Jefferson had been chosen a member of the Virginia Legislature, 
and took his seat on the 7th day of October, 1776. After his resig- 
nation of his seat in Congress, just mentioned, the members of that 
body — I mean the Continental Congress — appointed him a joint com- 
missioner to France, with Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, to 
negotiate treaties of alliance and commerce with that Government. 
This he declined, for the same reasons which prompted his resignation 
of a seat in Congress. 

He desired to superintend the organization of the new government 
of Virginia and to take part in the formation of her Constitution. From 
here, in fact, he entered upon that period of his life when he tempo- 
rarily withdrew from the concerns of the central power, entering upon a 
new field as "the founder of a new and distinct school of politics," a 
service which won for him the epithet of " The Father of American 



13 

Democracy." Let me briefly enumerate some of his labors and their 
results : 

As a member of the Legislature of Virginia, Jefferson, with Pen- 
dleton and Wythe, was engaged on the revisal and reduction to a single 
code, of the whole body of the British Statutes, together with the Acts 
of the Assembly and certain parts of the common law. In this great 
undertaking it is admitted, although a youth, that he was the master 
spirit of the work, and there and then laid deep and secure the foun- 
dations of free government in his own State. 

The other particular subjects to which he gave great thought were 
the prohibition of the further importation of slaves, the abolition of en- 
tails, which, as he said, " broke up the hereditary and high-handed 
"aristocracy, which, by accumulating immense masses of property in 
" single lines of families, had divided our country into two distinct or- 
"ders of nobles and plebeians." And next, he drew the Virginia law 
of descents — giving equal inheritance to sons and daughters, in order to 
complete that equality among citizens which he properly conceived to 
be so essential to the maintenance of republican institutions, by the 
abolishment of the principle of primogeniture. Again, after a tough 
contest, he did away with the established church of Virginia. It had 
churches and glebe lands, and clergy supported by taxes raised for that 
purpose. After the lapse of years, Jefferson's celebrated law for re- 
ligious freedom was passed. Its spirit is shown by the following extract : 

"That our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opin- 
" ions, any more than our opinions in physics and geometry ; that, 
" therefore, the prescribing any citizen as unworthy the public confi- 
" dence by laying upon him any incapacity of being called to offices of 
" trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that re- 
"ligious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and 
" advantages to which, in common with his fellow-citizens, he has a 
" natural right ; that it tends, also, to corrupt the principles of that very 



14 

" religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing with a monopoly of 
" worldly honors and emoluments, those who will externally profess and 
" conform to it ; that though, indeed, these are criminal who do not 
" withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the 
" bait in their way ; that the opinions of men are not the object of civil 
" government, nor under its jurisdiction ; and, finally, that truth is great 
"and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient 
" antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless 
" by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argu- 
" ment and debate ; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted 
" freely to contradict them." 

He was the author of a system of education in his State, and when 
Secretary of State under Washington, put in practice our decimal 
coinage. He was the author of our original and liberal naturalization 
laws to encourage the peopling of our unoccupied and waste lands. 
He improved the grain and quality of our rice, and recommended 
grape culture as a staple of American industry. Nothing was too small 
for his attention, nothing too great or difficult, if it only promised use- 
fulness. His marvelous mental activity and his equally marvelous 
ability to work were always devoted to the best purposes. The great 
object of his life seemed to be to better the condition of the people and 
to purify government, so that when his time came to go, the world 
would be the gainer for his having lived in it. 

If Metternich, the able Prime Minister of Austria — whose cunning 
diplomacy overthrew Napoleon — be right, that statesmanship consists 
of a knowledge of the vital interests of a State, then was Jefferson among 
the foremost. He foresaw the future at the beginning, and made up 
his mind that the Colonies could not long exist as the vassals of Great 
Britain, and was always in the front rank in preparing the way of our 
coming Republic. As a citizen, as a member of Congress, as Minister 
to France and England, as Secretary of State, as Vice-President, as 



15 

President, as member of the Legislature and Governor of his State, he 
was ceaseless in advancing all the material interests of our country. 

Above and superior in wisdom to all his acts, save only the undying 
truths of our Magna Charta, was the act securing free navigation of the 
Mississippi River, which bears upon its bosom the commerce of an em- 
pire, which he too acquired for the American Union by purchase from 
France. He saw that even when the rights of the States and the liberty 
of their people should be firmly and securely established, they would 
only occupy a fringe of territory along the Atlantic Ocean, and 
would be continually menaced by England, France and Spain holding 
territory in the rear and on both flanks. 

He was willing to go to war rather than lose the control of the 
Mississippi River. It was vital, in his judgment, as all now concede, to 
our peace and prosperity. Through an able and discreet policy, he ac- 
quired not only the free navigation of this river, but its ownership from 
its source to the sea, together with the possession of the Province of 
Louisiana, having an estimated area of 1,160,577 square miles, now 
covered by those portions of the States of Alabama and Mississippi 
which lie south of the 31st parallel, by the States of Louisiana, Ar- 
kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Oregon, west of the Mississippi 
River, and Kansas, except the small portion thereof south of the Ar- 
kansas River and west of the 23d meridian ; by the Territories of Da- 
kota, Montana, Idaho, Washington and that known as the Indian 
Country, and by the portion of Colorado lying east of the Rocky Moun- 
tains and north of the Arkansas River, and all of the Territory of 
Wyoming north of the 42d parallel, and that portion of the Territory of 
Wyoming which is south of that parallel and east of the Rocky Moun- 
tains. It was a peaceful conquest, unrivaled by any made by the sword. 
In size, it was over twenty-five times that of the great Keystone State 
of Pennsylvania. 

Randall graphically states in his " Life of Jefferson," " No conqueror 



i6 



" who. has trod the earth to fill it with desolation and mourning, ever 
" conquered and permanently amalgamated with his native kingdom a 
" remote approach to the same extent of territory." 

" The purchase secured, independently of territory, several prime 
" national objects. It gave us that homogeneousness, unity and inde- 
" pendence, which is derived from the absolute control and disposition 
" of our commerce, trade and industry in every department, without the 
" hindrance or intermeddling of any intervening nation between us and 
" the market of the world. It gave us ocean boundaries on all exposed 
"sides, for it left Canada exposed to us and not us to Canada. It made 
" us indisputable and forever the controllers of the Western Hemisphere. 
" It placed our national course, character, civilization and destiny solely 
" in our own hands. It gave us the certain sources of a not distant 
" numerical strength to which that of the mightiest empire of the past 
" or present is insignificant." 

What wars, and blood, and treasure have been saved to us by this 
acquisition no mortal mind can calculate. The honor and the applause 
for work so well done are due to Jefferson. In the early part of this 
address, I alluded to the gift by Virginia of the northwestern territory, 
and said I would subsequently touch upon the subject. It is now ap- 
propriate I should do so, as Jefferson had much to do with the terms of 
and the cession itself. 

The extent of this grant can be measured when we remember that 
it embraces the present States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and 
Wisconsin, and if we include Kentucky, taken from Virginia, although 
not an immediate part of the northwestern territory, we find that Vir- 
ginia contributed six States, covering an area of 277,238 square miles, 
or 1 77,432,320 acres, which now have a population, as shown by the cen- 
sus of 1880, of 12,855,889, or about one-fourth of the population of the 
United States. Truly did Jefferson make himself grand in his relation 
to the acquisition of our territory. 



i7 

Reared in the possession of ancestral estates, with broad acres and 
slaves to cultivate and make them productive ; in fact, one of the ruling 
class in the old Colonial days, we might have expected to have found 
him for them, but such was not the case, for Jefferson was, from 
the beginning, a sincere and ardent believer in the rights of the people 
and in their capacity for self-government. It was not a passing caprice, 
but a well-settled conviction, and regulated all the acts of his life. He 
was anti-monarchial — -anti-aristocratic — a hater of the hereditary prin- 
ciple in every shape and form. It was the marked characteristic of his 
career, and he was ever vigilant to prevent the adoption of any policy 
in the slightest measure inimical to free institutions. 

At the time the Constitution was framed, he was in France as our 
Minister. What he disliked in it was first, " The omission of a Bill of 
" Rights, providing clearly and without the aid of sophism, for the 
"freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing 
" armies, restriction of monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of 
" the habeas corpus law, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable 
"by the laws of the land and not by the law of nations." He declared 
"that a Bill of Rights was what the people were entitled to against 
" every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just 
" government should refuse or rest on inference." 

In the second place, he was opposed to the perpetual re-eligibility 
of the President. Some of these objections were removed by amend- 
ment to the Constitution, but as to the last one, although not yet re- 
moved, he said : " At all events, he hoped the people would not be 
" discouraged from making other trials if the present one should fail." 

He was an enthusiast on the subject of the freedom of the press. 
He looked upon it as the safeguard against any and every encroachment 
of the monarchial and aristocratical element in our society. In a letter 
written by him in 1 787, to Col. Edward Carrington, of Virginia, he used 
this language : " The basis of our government being the opinion of 



" the people, the first object should be to keep that right ; and were it 
" left to me to decide whether we should have a government without 
" newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesi- 
" tate a moment to prefer the latter." 

Jefferson was, as may be supposed with such views, the bitter and 
unrelenting opponent of the alien and sedition laws, the details and pro- 
visions of which the time, and perhaps the occasion, forbid me to enter 
upon, except to remark that the freedom of the press was dead under 
such a gag. Such a law would, to-day, consign to the penitentiary 
nine-tenths of the editors and publishers, even of our most conservative 
journals. 

A permanent public debt, Jefferson regarded not as a blessing, but 
as a curse. In his view, it was another dangerous British imitation. 
He looked with fear upon the corrupting influences of the moneyed 
aristocracy to which it gave birth. 

Jefferson resisted the establishment of a United States Bank on the 
ground of unconstitutionality, and as erecting an overruling money 
power, which could only result injuriously. It was another " British 
imitation," and from it he apprehended every description of harm, and, 
in effect, he wrote that it would cause the creation of a party whose 
ultimate object would be to approach the substance and form of the 
British Government, instead of a party founded upon the noble love of 
liberty and republican government, which carried us triumphantly 
through the war. 

Reaching his final office — the Presidency — his inaugural was heroic 
in its tone and temper, and after-time gave his prophecy complete ful- 
filment. He said : " Every difference of opinion is not a difference of 
" principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same 
" principle. We are all Republicans ; we are all Federalists. If there 
" be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change 



19 

" its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the 
" safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is 
" left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear 
" that a republican government cannot be strong enough. But would 
" the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a 
" government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic 
" and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may, 
" by possibility, want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe 
"this, on the contrary, the strongest on earth. I believe it is the only 
" one where every man, at the call of the laws, would fly to the standard 
" of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own 
"personal concern." 

As President, he made few removals, and resolutely refused to ap- 
point relatives to office. To his kinsman, George Jefferson, he wrote : 
."The public will never be made to believe that an appointment of a 
" relative is made upon the ground of merit alone, uninfluenced by 
" family views ; nor can they ever see with approbation offices, the dis- 
" posal of which they entrusted to their President for public purposes, 
" divided out as family property." 

The number of officers was diminished, and retrenchment was ap- 
plied to all civil departments. Salaries were placed at fixed and reason- 
able limits. The naturalization laws were restored to three years' 
previous residence instead of fourteen, as provided during the alien and 
sedition law days, when there existed a prejudice against immigration 
and foreign-born citizens. Provision was made for the redemption of 
the public debt. He relieved the world's commerce from the exactions 
of the Algerine Corsairs. He proclaimed the doctrine that free ships 
make free goods. He asserted with power the rights of neutrals. I 
beg to repeat what I have already said, in a different form and phrase. 
He secured the navigation of the Mississippi, and, by the purchase of 
Louisiana, gave us that territory which enables our producers to grasp 
the rich commerce of two great oceans. He was honorable and just in 



20 



his high office; he realized that a man to be strong must be abso- 
lutely pure ; his courage and success was based upon self-respect. John 
Randolph, after years of bitter hostility, said, " I have never seen but 
" one administration which seriously, and in good faith, was disposed to 
" give up its patronage and was willing to go farther than Congress or 
" even the people themselves — so far as Congress represents their feel- 
" ings — desired, and that was the first administration of Thomas Jef- 
" ferson." 

At the expiration of his term of eight years in the Presidency, he 
returned to Monticello, his Virginia home. But he did not cease to be 
useful, and the student of history can drink from no more wholesome 
fountain of truth and wisdom than is to be found in Jefferson's volumi- 
nous correspondence. Finally, on the 4th day of July, 1826, the fiftieth 
anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, its venerable author, in 
the 84th year of his age, passed away, revered and honored, and sin- 
cerely mourned wherever freedom and honest government had a friend. 

Although he had held the highest offices for a period of over forty 
years, he retired with hands as clean as they were empty. And now, 
in conclusion, it seems to me appropriate, in view of the place and the 
occasion, and the circumstances under which I address you, that I quote 
what Jefferson wrote, in 1789, to Dr. Willard, of Harvard University, 
which had conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws : " It is 
"for such institutions as that over which you preside so worthily, to do 
"justice to our country, its productions and its genius. It is the work 
" to which the young men you are forming should lay their hands. 
"We have spent the prime of our lives in procuring them the precious 
"blessing of liberty. Let them spend theirs in showing that it is the 
" great parent of science and of virtue, and that a nation will be great 
" in both always in proportion as it is free." 

I think, after what you have heard, you will agree with me in the 
judgment that Jefferson was one of the purest and ablest patriots that 
American history has produced. 



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